


How Long?

by fatmfanfics



Category: Florence + the Machine
Genre: F/F, Florabella
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-03
Updated: 2014-12-03
Packaged: 2018-02-28 01:16:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2713577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fatmfanfics/pseuds/fatmfanfics
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"How long can we keep this up? How long till we call this love?"</p><p>Florence tries to understand her confusing relationship with Isabella.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How Long?

**Author's Note:**

> Well, I guess I'll be uploading my other fics here, too. And I decided to start with this one.
> 
> I wrote this fic between May and June and posted it in July on tumblr. Christina Perri's song "Distance" inspired me, and so did the fact that there's an actual ocean separating Flo and Isa, and it makes me sad. So this is Florence (me, really) trying to understand their relationship over the years (as expected, it's a bit angsty). Thank you Kate for revising this <3 I hope you guys like it :) Xxx

  
  


Sometimes I think about us. I mean, I’m always thinking about us – about  _you_. But sometimes I dedicate too much time to thinking about everything we’ve lived through together. And that’s when I get confused and a little lost. I force my mind to recall the details, to tell me when it all started and to tell me  _how_  – how did we end up here?

I can remember innocence; once, it existed. Once, my heart didn’t feel like it was about to explode whenever you touched me. Once, my head didn’t spin when you were too close to me. Once, my hands didn’t slip under your shirt, seeking for flesh. Once, my lips didn’t close around yours. Once, we truly were _only_  friends.

But we’re not just that anymore.

I know you know that, too. I highly doubt there’s someone that  _doesn’t_  know it, or at least doesn’t suspect it. We’re not discreet; we don’t have to be. They’re not what we’re running from. We’re running from something abstract. From the doubts that spread in our minds like a black stain; from the fear that rises in our chest like claws scratching us from the inside whenever we’ve crossed too many lines. We’re afraid of what might happen if we’re not careful enough.

You’re mine and you’re  _not_. I have you and I  _don’t_. We’ve sinned. And we keep sinning even though we are terrified of hell, and we keep lying to ourselves that maybe,  _maybe_  there’s a way of absolution, and maybe we’re not damned. But they’re just words, just empty air.

How long can we keep this up?

***

We’re about to go on stage and I’m nervous. The week’s been stressful and I drank too much last night and my head is spinning. I’m sitting on the floor in one corner of the corridor that leads to the stage with my knees drawn up to my chin and my head in my hands.

I  _feel_  rather than hear you approaching me. Your fingertips graze the exposed skin of my arm and I sense your body sitting down next to me. You  _know_. You always do.

“Hey. I brought you a glass of water, honey.” Your voice is soft and sweet, but somehow it has the power to dig through the thick walls around me and reach my nerves and it sooths me a little.

My hands leave my face and I turn my head slowly to face you. Your eyes are glowing grey in the light of the corridor and your lips stretch into a compassionate smile. I try to smile back at you but I’m sure my face only twists into a grimace. I take the glass of water from your hand and take a few gulps before placing it on the floor beside me.

“You don’t need to be stressed,” you continue. “You’ll be amazing. You always are.”

I nod even though I don’t believe you and for a moment I envy your safe spot behind your keyboard. “Thank you,” I mumble to you and my hand instinctively finds its way to yours and our fingers intertwine. I lay my head on your shoulder and lean my face slightly so that my lips brush the soft skin of your neck. You shiver and squeeze my hand slightly and your free hand cups my face and your thumb caresses my cheek. And for a moment, there’s no gig, no band, no crowd. For a brief moment it’s just  _us_.

“You’ll be up in two minutes,” a voice calls out, and it seems like an unexpected lightning coursing the sky in a sunny day. You jerk back to reality and pull away abruptly, letting go of my hand as if I had hurt you and suddenly everything turns grey.

“Come on, Flo,” you say standing up. You extend your hand to help me to my feet, but I dismiss it and I can see your face fall a little and it hits me like a punch to the gut. I offer you a small smile and walk past you towards the few steps that lead up to the stage.

I know you don’t like it when I push myself away. I wonder if you know how hard it is for me to have you so close to me when I know that’s not where you’re going to stay.

***

We’re in a hotel room again, which you like and I don’t. It will always amaze me how easy it is for you to adjust to a new routine, to a new lifestyle. You just seem unaffected by the changes around you. And for a moment I feel embarrassed for still having to sleep with you, in your room, in your bed. But at the same time I don’t. Because it gives me the chance to have your small body pressed against mine all night. A place that is only  _yours_.

I come out of the bathroom wearing only a t-shirt and knickers. There’s no need to cover my skin; my body is a secret you’d unraveled a long time ago. Even so, you glance at me and let your eyes wander over my body and I let mine observe you observing me. Your eyes are sparkling and there’s a small smile of admiration playing on your lips and I smile back at you.

Then you frown and shake your head. “You really should be more careful, darling,” you say, pointing with your head at my legs. I look down to meet a series of bruises of different colours that vary from blue to green to yellow to purple.

I roll my eyes. “Ah, always!” I say, laughing. “They’re a part of me, already.”

“You should be more careful,” you repeat, then pat the empty space on the bed and I go to sit beside you. You pull my legs over your own and let your index finger caress them, tracing the outline of a few particular bruises. “You should take  _my_  legs as an example!” You joke, rolling your eyes.

I laugh and glance at your legs and then something possesses me and I pull away, crawling to the foot of the bed and biting your shin, hard.

“Ouch!” you yell, drawing your leg up to your chest and rubbing the place I’ve just bitten. “Now what was  _that_  for?”

I get closer to you, smiling wickedly. “Now our legs will look very similar.”

Your mouth hangs open and I laugh at your incredulous expression. “Florence Welch you’re… you’re simply impossible!” You scold me, but can’t suppress a laugh that escapes your throat. “You’ll spoon me tonight. It’s the least you can do after that.”

I lie on my side and wait for you to turn off the lights and come to lie beside me. I open my arms for you and curl my body around your small one. Our legs are entangled in a weird but comfortable way. I curl an arm around you and our hands link together.

I wonder if you’d change a few things, like I would, if I were brave enough. I’d make sure to always keep you close, always in my line of sight, always near enough for me to touch you, even if there were no walls to keep us safe from the eyes of the ghouls that are constantly watching us. I’d make sure to remind you how much you mean to me whenever our eyes held, no matter if we were alone or sharing a room with a crowd. If we were both brave enough, maybe we could finally be.

_Do you feel the way I do right now?_

***

We’re in London, but I’m not with you. I’m with  _him,_  instead. We’re in bed and he’s running his hands up and down my body waiting for the right moment to touch me where he really wants. But when he tries I stop him, pulling his hand away. I can’t let him touch the places you’ve touched dozens of times before. Put his lips to places your lips have kissed. I fear what name might escape my mouth if I allow him to do so, because I know that he’s the last person that will be on my mind. There’s no space left; you, in all your small size, already occupy every inch of it.

He looks at me with something really close to anger and I prepare myself for what’s about to come. The shouting, the offensive words, the hurtful ones, too. The “ _You don’t care about me”_. But there are truthful words pouring out of his mouth too and they somehow cut deeper than the lies that had come before them. _“You never loved me!”_  I keep my eyes on the floor after those words because I fear he will see the same in my eyes.  _Because he’s just spoken the truth._  I’ve only been truly in love  _twice_  in my life, and neither of them was with him.

The first was with Stuart.

The second was with  _you_.

That’s why I feel somewhat relieved when he breaks up with me. I come to you again because there’s no one else I want to talk to right now. You open your arms to me like you’ve done thousands of times before and I let myself sink in your hold, heavy tears rolling down my cheeks and dampening your t-shirt and I know that every time they make their way through the fabric and onto your skin it hurts you as much as it hurts me.

You cradle me in silence, planting light kisses on the top of my head until my sobs start to die down, until they turn to muffled sniffs against your chest. I can hear your heartbeat, and if I had to choose only one sound to listen to for the rest of my life, that would be it.

“I’m sorry, sweetie.” Your voice is quiet and sweet and if it were tangible. I’m sure it would be as soft as silk to the touch. “I… I didn’t think you loved him this much, Flo.”

I shake my head. “And I don’t.”

You stop cradling me and when you speak your voice is almost inaudible, like the first bird to sing the morning after a thunderstorm. “What are you crying for, then?”

I don’t answer. For a moment I don’t even have the energy to move, but when I come back to reality I’m already facing you. Your big eyes are glowing incredibly blue now and they’re all I can see. And they’re telling me that you know the answer. You know I’m crying for all the times I made us feel guilty for doing something forbidden. For all the times you had to watch while his lips were pressed against mine. All the nights I spent with him while you were two doors down the same hotel corridor, probably imagining what was happening. For all the times I made you feel like a second option; a substitute when my boyfriend wasn’t around and I was  _needy_. For every time I wanted to throw everything away and just scream to the world what we’d been doing and stopped myself because I was  _afraid_.

I cry for everything we could have been and weren’t. And for everything we’ll never be.

“Oh,” escapes your lips. You offer me an apologetic smile as tears fill your own eyes and you blink several times to send them away.

We don’t say anything else, and for the first time I can’t read your face and I doubt you can read mine. I believe I smiled back at you – an understanding smile – but I’m not sure. Maybe I intended to, but my muscles never really did as I commanded. Maybe I was afraid that if my lips parted, words that couldn’t be pronounced would slip through them.

You pull me down onto your body and I nestle my head into your shoulder. Your fingers tangle in my hair and you press your lips dangerously close to mine and I know I’m exactly where I want to be.

“Stay here tonight,” you plead and I lean my head to kiss your lips ever so gently. You hold me tighter against your body.

I’m upset tonight but I won’t be tomorrow morning. I know you know that. I know you know that when reality hits me it hits me hard and it feels like the world is crumbling and all the pieces and parts are accumulating on my shoulders and I just can’t go on. But you also know the emotions drain out of me as fast and easy as they fill me up and in the end I’ll be okay with just whatever.

We’re not only best friends anymore.

_What are we, then?_

***

I’m doing an interview. I can’t remember to which channel or radio anymore because it’s probably my fifth interview today and my brain isn’t so good with keeping up with all the names and changes of interviewers, and I try my best to keep smiling even though I’m answering pretty much the same questions I have already answered to all the other four interviewers that had come before this one.

It’s a woman who’s sitting in the chair opposite me. She has brown skin and dark hair and she’s young and very beautiful. I can’t recall her name and I can’t help but feel a little sorry for it. She’s just another face I’ll see for a couple minutes and then will get lost in a distant land inside my mind and I’ll probably never remember again. Or maybe I will if she happens to interview me another time, but that’s just a hypothesis.

I catch myself wondering why it was different with you. Why you weren’t only a face I saw that caught my eye and then just vanished from my memory like thousands of other faces had before you. Why you weren’t only a landscape in the scenery of my life, only a pretty painting on a wall or a beautiful voice I heard while walking down the streets. I wonder why you had to stay. To be the protagonist in the private play that is my life.

Of all people, why  _you_?

I realise I’m distracted again in the middle of an interview and I have no idea if my answers are making sense or not, but the interviewer is smiling and nodding so I believe they are. She asks me something that jerks me back to reality, though.

“You have such an interesting mind! Could you share something about your creative process? How does it work?”

A genuine, wide smile spreads across my lips for the first time this afternoon and I take a deep breath as a flood of memories drown my mind in sweetness and laughs and sounds and smells and sensations. I open my mouth and let the happiness out before it constricts my chest. I say your name like a sacred secret and my eyes dance across the room as I vainly look for you, but I know you’re out of my sight and reach right now. I hope you’re watching me and I hope you, too, are smiling as you remember the same things that are in my head. I hope we can talk about it later and go back to that time if only for a few minutes.

But I hope you won’t notice how I bit my lips sometimes in between lines and rubbed the tip of my nose to try and hide a blush that crept over my cheeks. And I hope you won’t notice how my breath caught in my throat a few times as flashes of some moments we had shared in your tiny studio made my heart skip and my lungs have trouble breathing.

I’m afraid I’m too transparent.

_I’m afraid of what you’ll see right now._

***

The sunlight creeps trough the thin curtains and finds its way to our bodies. I rub my eyes and blink a few times to get used to the sudden brightness and jump out of the bed, rushing to the window and pulling the curtains apart. The beautiful blue sky welcomes me and I smile, turning around to face your small body still curled up in bed, your silver blonde hair spilled all over the pillow. You’re still asleep, but not for long.

I climb onto the bed again and prop myself on my elbow letting my fingertips run over your chest ever so softly, relishing the goose bumps that erupt over your body. You shiver slightly under my touch and a small smile tugs at your lips.

“Izzy,” I chirp, smiling widely at you. “Good morning!”

“What time is it?” you mumble, your voice still croaky from sleep.

I glance at the clock that sits on the bedside table and announce, “Half past seven.”

You snort. “Florence, it’s fucking early and you don’t even have interviews this morning, so—”

“But,” I interrupt, moving my hand to your ribcage, “it’s our last month of tour and I want to do something fun. And being in this hotel room  _isn’t_  fun.”

You groan and bury your face in the pillow. I narrow my eyes and let my hand run flat across your breasts this time. You hold your breath. “Get up now, or I’ll make you.”

You turn your head just enough to glance up at me and give me your best  _I dare you_  smile and that’s enough to trigger something inside me that spreads through my body like steamy water, and before I know it my teeth are biting your neck and my fingers are poking your ribs as you squirm beneath me, a guttural laugh escaping your throat sometimes between noisy breaths and strangled pleads of “Flo! Please stop!”

But I don’t. I climb on top of you instead, placing my legs on each side of your body, immobilizing you so that you can’t escape my attacking fingers. You try a different strategy, then, bringing your hands to my hips and squeezing it, running them up slowly, but before you can reach my own ribs I grab your hands and hold them above your head, pinning them to the mattress with only one of my hands as the other reaches down to tickle you a little more. In an attempt to stop me, you throw your legs around my hips and pull me down onto you and as our bare skin touch a jolt of pleasure courses through my body and I exhale noisily between gritted teeth.

I believe you laughed, or maybe you just breathed heavily through your throat. I can’t be sure because I’m too lost looking at your face now, only a few inches away from my own. We hold each other’s glare for an undefined moment and I can see in them the lust and poetry I know you can see in mine.

Once again, we’re facing each other and closing our eyes to the truth that we begrudgingly but resolutely try to avoid. And a part of my mind tries to recall when the casual hand holding and stolen glances have turned into this unbearable urge to feel your lips against mine, this longing to hold you close and have the liberty to say you’re mine. And I ask myself if we’ll ever be able to be close to each other without feeling as though we’re two lonely atoms in a galaxy that are about to collide and explode.

“I think… we should probably shower and eat something before we go,” you say and even though your voice is low it sounds like a thunder in the silence of the room.

You slide one hand from my grip and run it over one side of my body and although the touch is soft and light I feel it all the way through my bones and it somehow ignites a storm inside me; a storm I know I have to tame, like you’re doing with the one inside yourself.

“I believe we should,” I agree, bringing my hand up to cup your face.

You lean your head forward a few inches, but still not enough for our lips to meet. I run my index finger across your lower lip. Your legs slip off my hips and drop against the bed, defeated. I free your other hand and slowly, reluctantly pull away from you, letting all the regret and bitterness and cowardice die into the silence of all the unspoken words and unvoiced thoughts.

I sit on the bed beside you and smile. You smile back at me.

“If you don’t rush to the bathroom, I’ll go first and I’ll make sure to leave both towels very wet,” I taunt and you laugh, pulling the sheets aside and getting out of the bed.

We try too hard to pretend everything is still casual – casual spoon, casual kisses, casual sex. We joke about it, even. We try so hard not to see. Not to feel. We try so hard that we make living a constant battle; one that neither of us will ever win.

We try too hard.

_I wish we would just give up._

***

Time goes quicker, and yet it’s not quick enough. It used to fly when I was with you, no matter what we were doing. But now I’m alone. Not literally, of course. My mum lives ten minutes away and Grace comes to visit me a lot and I’ve been spending some time with Sophie and I’ve also traveled a bit in order to get inspired, but no matter how many people are around me there’s an empty space inside me that never seems to be filled up. It has  _your_  shape.

I still remember the day you told me you were moving to L.A. First, I thought you were kidding, and when I realised you weren’t I’d forced myself to swallow my sadness and support you, encourage you, show you how happy I was for you –  _Look how far you’ve come, my little machine! I’m so proud of you!_  – leaving out the part where I wanted to say how empty that made me feel. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t act like a victim and only think about myself. Especially because there’s no victim; just a broken heart that expected so much from a situation that was bound to end like this.

You had sounded almost apologetic when you told me, and I could see on your face that you were torn between being extremely proud of and essentially mad at yourself at the same time. But it’s not only your fault or mine; it’s  _ours_. Perhaps we held each other too tight. Or perhaps we didn’t hold each other close enough.

_Which was our mistake?_

I’ve always made fun of you for being so tiny, I’ve always taken advantage of my height. But for the first time I’m experiencing what it is like to feel so small. Because suddenly you’re the giant one. The mature one with a great job and an independent life in a big city in a foreign country. And I’m the tiny one, lost and confused, with only half of what once was a whole, expecting for something extraordinary to happen and getting frustrated when it doesn’t.

I wish I could talk to you about it, but I don’t want to make you think I’m breaking down again. I don’t want to make you worry. And I don’t want you to think I haven’t changed at all since about ten years ago when we first met.

So I move on, like I see on your Instagram that you have. I go out, I party, I drink, I listen to music, I watch movies, I write some lyrics. I meet new people and sometimes I allow myself to kiss them, to touch them, to try and find in them what I’ve only found in  _you_. But I do it in vain. Because every time I close my eyes you’re the one I see. It’s your hands that I imagine caressing my body, and it’s your lips I feel pressed against mine. And suddenly it doesn’t matter who I am with because they all have the same face and they all look tiny and blonde and have big bluish-grey eyes and they all taste the same and I call them all by the same name.

So I talk to you. I call you at least once a week because I need to hear your voice sometimes. I text you everyday and I get foolishly happy when you reply but we keep it casual.

_How’s work doing? How’s the weather in L.A? What about London? I’ve seen your latest pictures! Have you been having fun?_

You asked me once if I’d been writing new songs lately and I answered yes and it was both a lie and a truth. I  _have_  been writing a few things but nothing that we could use because they’re all too personal. Not to sing to the public because they wouldn’t see the nuances but you would, and you’re the only one who  _can’t_. Of course I’m still writing about water and the ocean and loving and losing and death and life. Only my muse has changed drastically. And so has my creative process.

We cannot mess around with music in your tiny studio this time and you cannot help me to finish the lyrics as I write them. So I do it by myself. I tap on the walls alone, I use teacups and sticks and record my own voice on my phone so that I won’t forget the rhythm I’ve thought of for a certain song. And the more I create things alone the more I wish I didn’t have to.

I asked you once if you missed me and you categorically answered  _yes_. I wonder if you understood what I asked. I wonder if you know that I didn’t ask if you miss me; but if you miss  _being with me._  If you miss the nights we spent together, the stolen kisses backstage before a show, the hugs and hand holding, the stolen glances on stage and the intimacy.

Do you miss me as much as I miss you?

I know the only real distance between us is the geographical one. I know that once we’re together again our friendship will be just the same. But I fear for the rest of our relationship, the part we still keep in secret; from ourselves, not from others. And a part of me knows that you’re keeping your distance to save what we have. And this same part of me, although small and quiet, is glad you did it. Because now I can confess to the emptiness of my room what I really feel. And I do it frequently while hugging the pillow you used to lay your head on. I’m sure you do the same.

We do it now because we know the other isn’t listening.

***

I come to visit you. You hug me a little too tight and kiss a delicious spot dangerously close to my mouth and I feel your breath tickle my lips. Your hand lingers on my waist only for two seconds longer than necessary and you smile.

“Welcome to my flat,” you say as you show me around, and I ask myself how a place that I’ve just stepped inside of can feel more like home than the house I’ve been living in for the past months.

“Could I show you something?” you ask from your room as I put my stuff in the guest room.

“Absolutely,” I answer.

You enter the room holding your laptop and place it on the dressing table.

“I wrote a song a few days ago and I thought it was kinda beautiful, so I saved it in case you want to include it on the next album, or something.”

I smile. Partially because you wrote a beautiful song and you want  _me_ to use it, and partially because you thought of me when I was away and it makes me feel stupidly special. You press play and turn around to face me.

“Would you like to see my new studio later?”

My smile grows wider. “Of course!”

“We could try to write something for this melody…?” Somehow I can’t tell if that’s a question or a statement. Maybe you don’t know what it was supposed to be, either.

“Sure. It would be nice, actually.” I try to keep the next words in but an invisible force opens my mouth and pulls them out: “It’s been weird without you.”

You get closer. Your tan skin is glowing almost gold in the faint sunlight that streams into the room through the open window, and your silky blonde hair is framing your perfect face and there’s a sparkle in your eyes that makes a breath catch in my throat.

“I know,” you say, then you whisper, as if you were telling me a secret, “I miss you, too.”

I reach for your hand and when my fingers brush your skin you bite your bottom lip and it drives me mad. I pull you closer and press my lips to yours and for a second you’re motionless.  But then your other hand runs up one side of my body and I bring a hand to cup your face, and a shiver shakes my body slightly as your tongue runs across mine.

And then I realise that it isn’t London, or L.A or my house or this flat. It’s  _you_ who feels like home.

I lay my head on your shoulder and let my lips graze the skin of your neck and I smile as goose bumps erupt over your body.

I missed you. I missed you more than I can put into words and my body is trying to show you just  _how much_  it missed yours. I let the tip of my tongue touch your skin and the moan that escapes your mouth sends a thrill of pleasure through my body. My hand desperately tries to find its way under your t-shirt, craving for bare skin and your hand cups my face as you force me to look up at you and kiss me hard.

Next thing I know is that we’re in bed and you’re on top of me. You’re shirtless and so am I and our breathing is heavy and unsteady and I notice that it’s the fourth time the song is repeating itself but even this sound is slowly being drowned in the sound of our hisses and moans, which grow louder and louder with every passing second.

“I missed you,” I whimper into your skin.

“I missed you, too,” you answer into my mouth.

“I missed you  _more_ ,” I retort and before you can complain I make you lose focus by touching you where you need the most.

You do the same to me and it’s a matter of seconds before everything that happened in the past months start to fade away from my mind. All the pain and anguish and guilt for letting someone have me like this, start to disappear and be replaced by all the good memories of all those times we’ve done this. I take in your every curve, drink in your taste, your moans, my name in your voice. My fingers claw your skin and your teeth sink into mine and the incoherent and unintelligible whimpers that escape our lips are truer and more honest than prayers and also more wrong than sins.

Finally, like a cry of freedom, we gasp and tremble and let out strained screams and when you collapse on top of me it feels like no time has passed at all. It feels like we’re still on tour and you never left London and we’ve never been apart.

Your eyes meet mine and I give you a smile as wide as the one you’re giving me. I press my forehead to yours and plant a kiss on the tip of your nose.

“Do you still wanna go to my studio?” you ask, almost in a daze.

I laugh lightly. “As long as we can repeat  _this_ when we come back, I’m okay with that.”

“Deal,” you cheer before capturing my lips in yours, and I desperately try to force my mind to convince me that we can stay like this forever.

But we can’t. And soon we are walking hand in hand to the door, ready to go to your studio. Although the scene of what had just happened is still vivid in my mind and I still can feel my skin tingle where your lips and hands had touched me, I feel like it’s all starting to fade away like steam, like fog in a sunny morning. And in the end we’re just you and me, and it amazes me as much as it baffles and confuses me.

You’re mine, and you’re  _not_. I have you, and I  _don’t_. We’ve sinned and we keep sinning even though we are terrified of hell, and we keep lying to ourselves that maybe we’re not damned.

How long can we keep this up?

 _How long till we call this_ love _?_


End file.
